Though Bloomsbury reported results for 2010 this morning, the company’s biggest news come informally out of Bloomsbury USA, where according to executive Evan Schnittman ebook sales jumped to comprise 40 percent of net sales in January 2011, up from 15 percent in December 2010. (That’s consistent with a recent report from Sourcebooks, in which they said their January ebook sales also jumped to 35 percent of sales.) Rising ebook sales and a Booker winner on the list helped Bloomsbury USA reach its “best performance ever,” with sales of 19.1 million pounds–up just 1.6 percent–but profit of 1.3 million pounds, up […]
eNews
Thompson Studies Publishing’s Past, and Sees “A Very Complex Metamorphosis” Ahead
With Borders’ recent bankruptcy filing there’s has been a lot of renewed interest in how they–and we–got to where we are today. Which is pretty much what John Thompson chronicles in his recently-released book MERCHANTS OF CULTURE: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century. The new issue of Poets & Writers has a thorough and interesting interview with Thompson by Gabriel Cohen. The good news is that “This field, which looks to the outsider like a chaotic mess, actually has a structure and a dynamic to it.” Despite all the complaining, Thompson sees book publishing as an optimistic culture by […]
eNews: PubIt Stats, BookRenter Funding, O’Reilly Stats
Barnes & Noble says that they have enrolled “more than 11,000 independent publishers and authors” in the self epublishing PubIt! program in four months, comprising 65,000 works. And they note that 35 PubIt! titles are currently among their top 200 ebooks. BN is also holding its first in-store event for PubIt! authors in their Santa Monica store (though the company never really leveraged their stores on behalf of iUniverse in the past).Release VCs still love online textbook rental companies. BookRenter has raised another $40 million in financing, a substantial boost on top of the $20 million raised previously. TechCrunch says […]
People, Awards, and More
At Rizzoli, Susan Masry has been promoted to international sales manager, overseeing sales to Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Latin America,,the Middle East, and South Africa, as well as Rizzoli’s domestic export accounts. Media and intellectual property lawyer Kevin Goering has joined Norwick & Schad, which has been renamed Norwick, Schad & Goering. In their third week of listing ebook bestsellers, the NYT has purged that self-published title we identified last week and–like USA Today–allowed Lisa Gardner’s 99-cent ebook to rise to No 1. (and No. 2 on the combined list). The LA Times announced nominees for its annual book prizes […]
More On eBook Bestsellers, and An Interesting Precedent
Continuing–and expanding on–the trend since Christmas, 19 of the top 50 titles on the USA Today bestseller list sold more units as ebooks than in print. And that was true for five of the top six titles. Among them, Lisa Gardner’s 99-cent ebook ALONE finally gets a ranking to match its position on etailers’ charts. Which will only spark further discussions among publishers about ebook bestseller strategies and standards. In a different taboo-breaker, you know how the big houses all declare they will never buy print rights only to a new book, while others have believed print buyers will emerge […]
Google One Pass Takes Direct Hit at Apple By Giving Publishers A Way To Control The Price of Digital Content
As publishers grow increasingly concerned about Apple’s recent restrictions on how digital content that is accessible through iOS apps can be sold, Google conveniently announced its own payment system, One Pass, in which “publishers can maintain direct relationships with their customers and give readers access to digital content across websites and mobile apps.” Readers who purchase content from a One Pass publisher through almost any device they choose can use a single sign-on with an email and password. For publishers, Google touts the ability to customize how and when they charge for content while experimenting with different models to see […]